


An Unstated Request

by capalxii



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 17:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2630786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capalxii/pseuds/capalxii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do not let him see how much this hurts your heart, Julius thought, to see him in such a state." Set a few days after the series finale. First time writing this pairing. Julius is a fixer and Malcolm is a Malcolm. Rating for language, this fic (mostly) fades to black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unstated Request

Generally speaking, when Julius pushed back against Malcolm, his retorts and rebuttals were rendered useless within moments. It was something Julius knew going in, and something he half expected, creating a sort of vicious cycle where he was never more than half-serious in his bluster, never really pushing as hard as he could which in turn granted Malcolm the centimeter of space necessary to completely dismantle him.

Generally speaking. 

Tonight did not seem so general. At Julius's home, mere days after a disastrous inquiry appearance and hours after an even more disastrous meeting with law enforcement, Malcolm seemed nearly non-verbal as Julius poked and prodded and questioned him for his own good. It wasn't a defiant lack of speech, he thought, but one borne of simply not caring. And a real not-caring at that, rather than Malcolm's "I don't care"s of the past that Julius had always taken to mean "I care far too much and am far too invested but wish I weren't." Even as he tried to be gleeful about Malcolm coming to him for something, that worried him more than he could say.

With a sigh, Julius leaned back into his armchair and regarded Malcolm with what he hoped didn't look like pity, because pity, to Malcolm, or at least the Malcolm he knew at one time, looked like an exploitable weakness. "You need to tell me everything," he said. "Everything you haven't told anyone else."

Malcolm, standing with one hand on a bookshelf, one hand on the jut of his hipbone, had his back to Julius and was looking down at nothing as he pulled together his own thoughts. "Told you everything already," he muttered. The line of his slim form seemed taut and fragile--Julius chided himself for that thought, nothing about Malcolm was fragile, not ever. Caged, perhaps. Brittle with danger lurking underneath an easily-broken shell of something that pretended to be civility. 

Fragile was not the safest word to use about Malcolm, and Julius took it back in his mind. "I can't do anything about the criminal charges if-"

"My lawyers will clear those up. Fucking made-up, pulled out of someone's arse pure shite, my lawyers will eat those charges like feces-eating bacteria at a fucking unwashed hipster music festival." He turned swiftly to face Julius, that hand that had been on his hip reaching out to stop Julius's words, long fingers splayed out and half-pointing at him. "You know how this works, you're not so fucking dense that you can't figure out what's happening."

"What's happening is you've fucked up, my dear Malcolm, and now you're asking for my help." He couldn't stop the ice dripping from his words. But when he saw Malcolm's reaction--the expected subdued anger, the unexpected inability to look him in the face, the surprising withering with shame--he almost wished he could have. Still, he pressed on, asked, "So what is it you want? Your reputation back? Because the last time I tried to help you, out of the goodness of my own heart, you weaponized that. Why should I trust you enough to help you this time?"

"You shouldn't, probably," he said with a shrug. He met Julius's gaze finally, and quickly, with eyes brighter than they had been all evening. "But do it anyway, because I'm finished. I'm not going back. Nothing I can do to you, even if I wanted to." He drew an X with his finger on his chest, the sound of skin against impossibly soft-looking blue cotton loud in the large sitting room. "Cross my dark abyss where a heart used to be."

"So, you want me to help drag other people down so that you can look better by comparison, for--what?" He laughed, out of shock more than anything, that Malcolm of all people would care what people thought of him with no ulterior motive for it. There was no gain in burnishing his image if he were retiring, no advantage to it. 

The look he got back for his laugh was a sour one, whatever brightness that had been there moments earlier fading to dim resignation. Bitter eyed, Malcolm said, "Dignity. Surely the notion of something like that is understandable to you in spite of being such an inbred, cock-faced, walking testicle-"

"Now how can I be both cock-faced and a walking testicle?"

"You're the eighth wonder of the world, Julius, you also manage to be a rectal polyp." 

"I'm sure," he murmured. "It's nice to see you're still so polite when you need something of me. And in my own home."

"Fine, you're a very nice and very dear polyp, does that make you happy?" There was something to his face, the barest hint of desperation as he added, "You do realize this is me, begging you?"

Do not let him see how much this hurts your heart, Julius thought, to see him in such a state. "I had determined that was the case, yes. I just don't see why."

"Why what?"

"Why beg," Julius said. "Why me. Why do you need it, why do you think I'd help."

"Right." He ran a hand over his face--a broad but somehow delicate hand, one of the things Julius had always found distracting but for some reason was the least distracting thing about Malcolm tonight. More distracting was the way he grabbed his coat from the back of his chair, and the way he was heading out of the room and down the hall to the front door. "You're right. Whole thing is stupid, there's no point to it."

"Malcolm--wait-" He was up like a shot, following Malcolm with long strides. For once, he felt every bit his height around Malcolm, taller and able to catch up quick enough to lay a hand on Malcolm's arm and twist him around. "Malcolm, that's not how this works," he said with a nervous smirk. "You ask me to do something, I push back, you--you put on on that, that bollocking face of yours, and you toss around violent sexual imagery until I grudgingly agree to see your view." 

"That's so much work," he sighed, and Julius wondered if fragile hadn't been the right word after all.

He stood slightly agape, dimly aware that his hand was still on Malcolm's arm and that he hadn't been shaken off, shoved away, or murdered yet for it. Attempting some sort of self-deprecating humor, he asked, "And you don't think I'm worth all that work?"

With a half shrug and an empty grin, Malcolm said, "Never said you were the one not worth it, darlin'." But Julius's face must have given up his extreme dismay at that statement, because Malcolm's grin turned into a scowl and he rolled his eyes so fiercely Julius thought they might actually detach from his skull. "Don't--don't look at me like that, you massive gay-"

"Shut up," Julius said, right before leaning down to kiss him. He hoped that was the proper reaction. Malcolm seemed to think it was, first making a tiny, wonderful sound of surprise, before absolutely melting against the wall Julius pushed him against. And that was a bit of a shock to Julius; he'd thought about this for years, under different circumstances, with many different reactions, but never quite that one. He pulled away and asked, "Now stop shutting up, and answer me."

For the longest few seconds, Malcolm looked as though he were debating whether to answer or whether to run; Julius kept hold of his arm and crowded his space just enough to make him think running would be more of a hassle than an honest answer. "I never wanted to beg," Malcolm said quietly. "And I didn't really need--I just thought, if someone else--it might help. I thought it might help."

Giving a confused little shake of his head, Julius asked, "If...someone else? Help how? I don't understand you."

Head down, all long-lashes and shadows under his eyes, he sounded as though each word were a struggle as he said, "I'm not saying it out loud. Can't you just--do that again. I don't want to talk, just do that again."

"...Are you asking me to kiss you again?"

"Yes," he said with a rush of air, sounding at once both frustrated and relieved. "Yes, you hairless bollock. Just like you did-"

He kissed him again to shut him up, one hand hitching up his jumper to settle on the warm skin underneath, the other pressing against the very top of his breastbone, fingers curled around Malcolm's neck just lightly enough to make their presence known. "Like that?" he murmured against Malcolm's lips. 

When Malcolm opened his mouth to breathe out a yes, Julius found his opportunity and took it. Later, much later, after he'd discovered what it felt like to run his hands through that short-cropped hair, to see what it looked like to have Malcolm on his knees, to know what it was to idly stroke lines and circles down his back, he'd ask Malcolm what it was he couldn't say earlier. For the time being, this seemed enough, and Julius was more than happy to oblige.


End file.
